ee_, mamma, that if you have it regularly dusted, it
never can have any sentiment, any atmosphere?"

"I don't see how you can call _dust_ atmosphere, my dear," said her
stepmother. "If I left your studio looking as you want it, and there
should be a fire, what would people think?"

"Well, if there should happen to be anybody from Wilbraham, Mass.,"
Charmian retorted, "they might criticise, but I don't think the New
York Fire Department would notice whether the place had been dusted or
not. But, go on, mamma! _Some_ day I shall have a studio out of the
house--Cornelia and I are going to have one--and then I guess you won't
have it dusted!"

"I'm sure Miss Saunders wouldn't let it get dusty," said Mrs. Maybough,
and then, in self-defence, Charmian gave Cornelia the worst character
for housekeeping that she could invent from her knowledge of Cornelia's
room.

She begged her pardon afterwards, but she said she had to do it, and
she took what comfort she could in slamming everything round, as she
called it, in her studio, when she went with Cornelia to have her
coffee there. The maid restored it to its conscious picturesqueness the
next day.

Charmian was troubled to decide what was truly Bohemian to eat, when
they became hungry over their work. She provided candy and chocolate in
all their forms and phases, but all girls ate candy and chocolate, and
they were so missish, and so indistinctive, and they both went so badly
with tea, which she must have because of the weird effect of the
spirit-lamp under the kettle, that she disused them after the first
week. There remained always crackers, which went with anything, but the
question was what to have with them. Their natural association with
cheese was rejected because Charmian said she should be ashamed to
offer Mr. Ludlow those insipid little Neufchatel things, which were
made in New Jersey, anyway, and the Gruyere smelt so, and so did
Camembert; and pine-apple cheese was Philistine. There was nothing for
it but olives, and though olives had no savor of originality, the
little crescent ones were picturesque, and if you picked them out of
the bottle with the end of a brush-handle, sharpened to a point, and
the other person received them with their thumb and finger, the whole
act was indisputably Bohemian.

There was one day when they all got on particularly well, and Charmian
boldly ordered some champagne for a burst. The man brought back
Apollinaris water, and she was